Not 20 minutes had passed following President
Trump's outrageous "Capital offense" declaration recognizing all of Jerusalem
as the capital of Israel when shouts were heard in parts of Lebanon of an
arriving apocalypse. Some self-flagellations were observed in certain Shia
quarters, predications of end of times spread as well as many calls for a Third
Intifada to "liberate Jerusalem."

Ninety out of a hundred US Senators approved of Trump's statement. None
voted against and the ten who abstained are well known hardened Trump
detractors. The vote reflects the continuing strong pro- Israel sentiment among
both fundamentalist and liberal Americans. On 12/15/2017, Trump administration
officials also declared that Jerusalem's Western Wall is part of Israel, a
declaration that will doubtless enflame more passions among Palestinians and
others in the Middle East and globally.

As
is well-known by now, every Arab country and more than 100 others have strongly
condemned Trumps decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem despite weak
sounding White House pledges to increase its support for the Palestinian
cause. Mild protests from the EU, UK and
many US allies also quickly followed. Egypt's UNSC draft resolution affirmed that any decisions on the status of Jerusalem were
"null and void and must be rescinded", and urged all states to
"refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the holy city" would have passed with 14 yea votes but for the
American veto. A similar indictment of
the Embassy move did pass the UN General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace
resolution on 12/21/2017 with 128 states in favor,
35 abstaining and nine voting against.

It's quite likely
that every 5th year Palestinian youngster in Lebanon's 12 camps
knows that the United Nations partition plan drawn up in 1947 planed that
Jerusalem would be a separate "international city." But the 1948 war
that followed Israel's declaration of independence cut the city in two and as
part of an Armistice, drawing with green ink on a map, the Green Line creating
East and West Jerusalem. Israel
controlled the western half, and Jordan controlled of the eastern half,
including the Old City. In 1967 Israel took over all of Jerusalem and declared
it to be its eternal undivided capital. And that's the cause of today's problem
because it is claimed as the capital of Palestine.

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Trump's
moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, which hopefully will not survive the next
Presidential election, has created much politically calculated hand wringing in
Lebanon and this region and the manipulation of the struggle to make Jerusalem
the capital of Palestine. Palestinian leaders are adamant that an
embassy move to Jerusalem is a violation of international law, and a huge
setback to the "peace process".

The first claim is
accurate, certainly it's an egregious violation of international law which the
UN must work to block with Security Council resolutions urging all countries to
refrain from moving embassies to Jerusalem. With respect to the 'peace process'
there is no such thing today and arguably there has never been a serious one.

For
the past quarter century, American presidents, both Democrats and Republicans
get secure more Jewish and Fundamentalist Christians, have declared Jerusalem
to be Israel's capital and promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv.

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In
1992, Bill Clinton declared, "Jerusalem is still the capital of Israel and
must remain an undivided city accessible to all."

In
2000, entrenched in a tight race with Albert Gore, Clintons Vice President,
George W. Bush promised: "As soon as I take my office I will begin the
process of moving the United States Ambassador to the city Israel has chosen as
its capital, Jerusalem."

During
his 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama made an even stronger commitment to
the Israeli position on Jerusalem than his predecessors declaring his support for Jerusalem being
the capital of Israel, emphasizing that "Jerusalem is the capital of
Israel and must remain undivided."

Since
Trumps announcement, plenty of anti-Palestinian politicians seeking to cash in
politically, including Lebanese President, Michel Aoun who is only in that post
because Iran installed him by instructing Hezbollah to break its deadlock of
Parliament, are wringing their hands and seeking political advantages from
Trumps provocative action.

Aoun,
is widely known for his anti-Palestinian views and actions and is thought to
care less about Jerusalem being the Palestinians capital, rather he just wants
every Palestinian out of Lebanon, the sooner the better. And so do the
Palestinians--they want to return to their homes in Palestine. One
anti-Palestinian tactic Aoun regularly uses in many of his speeches is to
insist that "Lebanon needs to be freed from the 600,000 Palestinians in our
country who seek naturalization."
Sometimes he uses the figure 500,000. Truth told, fewer than 175.000
Palestinians remain in Lebanon today and Aoun knows this. A just released
census of Palestinians in Lebanon, the first counting every taken, confirms
this. Tens of thousands have emigrated because by law, Lebanon bars them from
the elementary civil rights to work or to own a home. Of those who remain very
few would accept naturalization. The noted above
first ever official census of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was released on
12.21.2017, and it established that 174,422 Palestinian refugees are living in
the country, much lower than anti-Palestinian politicians have been telling
their followers that past few decades. The head count of
Palestinians in Lebanon, called the Comprehensive Census of Population and
Housing in Palestinian Camps and Gatherings in Lebanon, is a project of the
Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee at the Grand Serail. More than 500 professional population surveyors crisscrossed
Lebanon over the past two years to obtain an accurate count.

Also,
being heard are renewed promises by the Hezbollah led "Resistance" that it will
withdraw its forces fighting in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere and make
Palestine its top priority, promising that if it is necessary Iran/Hezbollah
will import Shia militia from across the region to help "liberate Al Quds."
Shortly after Trumps declaration, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah announced that his fighters would return from abroad and
focus its fighting on behalf of Palestinians, since Hezbollah's fighters had
already defeated its enemies in several other regional battles against Syrian "terrorists".

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Addressing a 12/11/2017
rally in South Beirut via a video feed, Nasrallah declared "Jerusalem,
Palestine and the Palestinian people will return to be the priorities" for
Hezbollah, adding that the group would "dedicate
all its time to Palestinian resistance."

Nasrallah's promise that
the "Resistance" will dedicate all its time to Palestinians comes as good news
to the Beirut-Washington DC based Palestine Civil Rights Campaign (PCRC)
volunteers who have been pressing Hezbollah over the seven years in Syria to arrange
90 minutes of Parliaments time to grant the elementary civil right to work and
to own a home for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Sixty of the minutes would
be required to enact the right to work for Palestinians without Kafkaesque
restrictions that prevent them from working and thirty minutes to repeal the
2001 racist law that criminalized home ownership for Palestinians in Lebanon.

Since 2013, Professor Franklin P. Lamb has traveled extensively throughout Syria. His primary focus has been to document, photograph, research and hopefully help preserve the vast and irreplaceable archaeological sites and artifacts in (more...)